INSIDIOUS ASSASSINS

by Jack Ketchum

  When I burned down the pool house, they hired guardians. Dad said to Mom, “That’s it, we need help.” They got two big, burly, gangrene-spirited, thick-necked morons to live with us in our house, sleeping next to my room. Like I couldn’t shake them. Combined, their IQs don’t add up to mine. I just keep my fun more secret, that’s all.

  I was all ready to step up my game when Mr. Brandywyne came to me on the sly. It was like a sign from God. Mark Brandywyne is an old family friend, almost as rich as my own parents—and trust me when I say my folks are rich as Croesus. If you don’t know who Croesus was then you’re too dumb to deal with me.

  Brandywyne comes to all our parties with his young new wife, Sally. She always looks sour. Like she swallowed a sour ball candy and is about to throw up. He was over that day of the proposal; when it happened, my parents were away from the house. I soon found out he was there to speak to me, not the folks. He walked with me to the pool to sit under the cabana, in the shade, both of us wearing sunglasses in the Southern California noon sun. My guardians stood at the French doors watching, but out of earshot. Most of the time they seem more like ghosts than men. Ghosts that lurk around the perimeter of my life. When they think I’m getting close to doing something ... odd ... they shake a finger at me and frown, letting me know they’re watching. I hate them. I was thinking of poisoning their lemonade.

  That day Brandywyne said, “Gordon, I’ve known you since you were born. It occurs to me you possess a skill set I have need of.”

  “You ended that sentence with a preposition,” I said, giving him a grin. He was the kind of guy I could play with that way. He’d never treated me like a kid.

  “You’re smart, too, I know how you scored off the chart.”

  “You flatter me, Grasshopper.”

  “Gordon, let’s be serious. What is it you want most?”

  “Can I name anything?”

  “Anything.” He picked at a tiny bit of dark lint on his white slacks. I studied him a moment. He had something up his sleeve. He wanted something big.

  Now was my time, that’s what I thought. No one had ever asked me what I wanted. Everyone assumed he knew what I needed and to hell with what I wanted. I was pretty sick of it.

  “I want my freedom.” There. Let’s see what he’d make of that.

  He sat staring ahead at the Olympic-sized swimming pool with the rock falls at the far end. “I can give you that,” he said.

  I turned to him and slid up my sunglasses. I squinted. “Mr. Brandywyne, I’m not someone you want to trifle with. Do you know what freedom means to me?”

  “Tell me, Gordon. Tell me specifically what you want.”

  “I want out of this house. I want to be flown to another continent where I can disappear. I want ID stating that I’m eighteen so I can be on my own. I want a bank account, a nice one so I don’t have to work. I don’t want any guardians or parents or trustees. I don’t want anyone looking over my shoulder. And remember this—we’re not friends. I have no friends.”

  Mr. Brandywyne sat still for long moments. Finally he turned to me, took his sunglasses off and looked me in the eye. “I can guarantee that.”

  “You can help me disappear?”

  My gaze widened in surprise. Who would really give me my desires? He had to be as warped as a sickle moon. Give a fifteen-year-old kid a passport faked to make me older? Give me a fat bank account in a new country, and true, real freedom to live life the way I wanted? We were talking heaven.

  It was a no-brainer. “What do you want me to do?” I asked. “I’m up for it. But I have to see everything before I start. The passport, the bank account, the flight ticket. I’ll want you to get me away from these ... these baboons.” I waved my hand in the air indicating the two baby-sitters standing behind us. “I mean it. I want proof you’ll keep your word.”

  He nodded. “I figured you wouldn’t trust me. I’ll bring it all to you within the week. When it’s time, I’ll take you to the airport myself.”

  “First, tell me what you want.”

  “I want you to kill my wife. Then I want you to disappear.”

  Gordon agreed to my plan the way I hoped he would. Even at fifteen I saw the potential in the boy. If I tried divorcing Sally, she would take me to the cleaners. She said she would and I believed her.

  Oh, in the beginning it was wonderful. She was young, lithe, and smart. She professed to love me. I was an old fool, just like all old fools. Her beauty blinded me. The long, tan legs; the thick, luscious hair; those succulent lips. And she could play chess. Not only play it, she could beat me at it. She was all I’d ever wanted, or so I thought.

  Not long after I put a ring on her finger she began to change. She grew temperamental and sometimes she mocked me, pursing those red lips and repeating something I said to her in a hateful, gravelly voice. She began to go off on her own, not coming home until late at night, without explanation. She began to spend money like it grew on the trees.

  I tried talking to her, loving her, giving her everything she wanted, and the more I gave, the more she took.

  I couldn’t kill her and risk prison time. I couldn’t divorce her. I needed Gordon. Love had long vanished and I saw the relationship for what it was—an old, balding man, lonely, desperate for companionship, who fell for a femme fatale, a women bent on breaking me and leaving me penniless.

  I began to study her routine and decided Gordon would have to come in the early morning, after two a.m., and bludgeon her in the bed. She was only predictable when asleep. I never knew when she was going or coming. While she slept, deep in the night, I’d leave our bed and wait in the living room while upstairs Gordon took care of the problem. Could he slip the men who hovered over him? I knew Gordon could do anything. Gordon was an assassin. He was born to kill. Even his parents didn’t know it went that deep, but I knew. I could see it in his eyes from a young age. In the depths of his soul the boy was as conscienceless as a pit viper. It was a wonder he hadn’t already murdered his parents in their sleep. I think they hired the two guards for their own peace of mind more than to keep Gordon under control. Who could sleep at night with a boy like that in the house?

  I knew what Gordon was because I’d seen it before a couple of times. Once in the Army. A guy in our platoon had those eyes, those dead pools without feeling. One day he caught our sergeant alone in the latrine and, because he hated him, broke his neck. We all knew he’d done it, though the investigator never figured it out.

  Another time I met a child of the devil. Not really, she was just born evil. But for all I know there really is a devil and she was the spawn of it. She had those eyes. She tortured animals, she laughed at pain and the distress of others, she stalked people, and by the time she was ten she’d killed a playmate while playing in a kiddie pool. Held her head under until she drowned. The worst ones are the ones born bad.

  Gordon was like that—capable of anything. He was my only hope. He wanted his freedom. And so did I.

  It’s occurred to me that I’m not any better than Gordon and the others like him. I just don’t want to get my hands dirty. I hire it out.

  Mr. Brandywyne brought me all the documents on a day in late April. I was alone at home again, except for the baby-sitters. We sat by the pool and he handed over a folder. Inside I found my passport. My name was Peter now and I was eighteen years old. I found an ATM card in my new name and he told me I could check the account. An open-ended flight ticket was in an envelope, one-way, first-class, to Spain. I had a new Social Security card in the new name and a driver’s license. I was legit. A brand-new person.

  I gave him a thumbs up and folded closed the sheaf of documents. I’d check the bank account online as soon as he left.

  “Okay,” I said. “When and where and how?”

  “My house, Friday night. My bedroom. I’ll be downstairs to let you in. Afterward I’ll make it look like a break-in. When you get there I’ll leave, go to a bar, have a beer. That’s my alibi. Wait half a hour so I can get there an
d be seen.”

  “How you want it done?”

  “Use a baseball bat. Bring it with you, wear gloves, leave it behind.” He added, “You can do this? You won’t freeze? Or change your mind?”

  I shook my head, holding the folder so tightly my fingers were white. “A deal’s a deal. Sally’s gone on Friday night. Just like you want. So when will you take me to the airport?”

  “There’s a flight Saturday morning at 4:30 a.m. Wait for me at the house when you’re done. When I finish the beer I’ll be back for you. We’ll disable the security and break the door lock. I’ll just drop you at the airport and hurry back to call the police. You’ll be free. We’ll both be free.”

  “I’ll ride my bike over. You’ll have to take it in your car trunk and get rid of it.”

  “I can do that,” he said.

  He nodded, stood, and walked away. I sat looking at the pool and decided to get my swimsuit when I took the folder to my room to hide. I felt like getting in a celebratory lap.

  Friday was fantastic. All day long I was like hot grease on a griddle. I was popping around the house like a kid, deliberately annoying the baby-sitters. They could hardly keep up with me. I couldn’t wait for the night. I had the bat leaning on my bike and Mr. Brandywyne’s house was only a mile away. We’d been there for dinner. He lived in a big stucco monstrosity at the end of a winding lane from the street. There were no gates and the lights were trained on the hedges near the front windows, leaving plenty of darkness. I had my folder ready. I had a small backpack with a few clothes and toiletries. I was beginning a whole new life and it was going to be mine, mine, all mine to spend the way I wanted.

  At one o’clock in the morning I stood and picked up the backpack, stuffed the precious folder into it, and opened my bedroom door. The two baby-sitters were snoring in their rooms. I crept past them, past my folks’ bedroom, and down the stairs, letting myself out quietly.

  Taking the bat, I climbed on my bike and rode out into the gentle night. The houses were dark. The dogs were sleeping. Only one car passed and I ducked with my bike into a yard thick with trees and vines.

  When I got to Brandywyne’s he met me at the front door, stepping aside without a word. He pointed upstairs.

  I walked softly, my heart beating in my ears. You might think I was playing a game, that I wasn’t serious, that I hadn’t killed before. You’d think wrong. My mother gave birth to a girl when I was seven. All that baby did was cry, for hell’s sake. Cry, cry, cry. They said she died of SIDS, luckily for me. Not so. I put a pillow over her fat red face and suffocated her. Bye-bye, baby. The folks didn’t even try having more babies after that. Maybe they suspected ...

  When I was ten, I pushed a boy off a tree limb after school and he fell to his death. He said I was crazy. He never should have said that. Accident, I exclaimed! I wasn’t even near him! That was when the psychiatrist visits went from once a week to three. I was shackled to the old, stupid geezer. If we hadn’t been rich, they would have sent me to juvy or some mental institution.

  Taking out Sally was child’s play.

  The house was supernaturally quiet. I could hear my breathing and held my breath until I had it under control. In the open door of the bedroom I stood looking at the bed, the woman sprawled there, and I cared no more for her than if she had been a four-legged bug. I remembered her red lips, how they turned down at the corner like she was bored enough to slit her own wrists. She wasn’t having any fun anyway with her old, balding, rich husband.

  As soon as I heard the front door snick shut and knew Mr. Brandywyne had left, I stood waiting, counting minutes, listening to the night beyond the windows. Palm leaves scraped the glass like skeletal fingers seeking a way inside. A car went by. A dog barked somewhere far off. It was a lonesome night and the only people in it were Sally and me.

  I spent time thinking about being free. Being able to indulge whatever wicked fantasies that came to me. I knew I wasn’t the only one in the world who couldn’t be shackled. I knew there were others, lots of others who stepped right into the dark side and found a home. I might be special, but only because I knew exactly what I wanted.

  When I judged Mr. Brandywyne had been gone long enough, I moved quickly through the dark room of shadows and brought down the bat hard on the sleeping figure’s head. Blood and teeth spewed and I ducked, still swinging, swinging with all my strength, over and over and over.

  The quiet fell like a shroud again and I could hear my labored breath. I had snot hanging from my nose and if I’d touched my forehead I would have felt sweat through my surgical gloves.

  I dropped the bat to the floor and backed away. In the bathroom adjacent to the bedroom I washed up, taking the small towel with me in my backpack.

  I felt nothing. Not even exhilaration. This wasn’t my kind of killing. I would have preferred a machete.

  I waited in the living room and soon saw the headlights. Brandywyne met me at the door with a tire iron. He locked and closed the door once we were outside, and then he jimmied it, busting the lock from the door frame.

  “It’s done?” he asked.

  “Done.”

  “Take your bike to the car.”

  On the way to the airport, he said, “Good thing you wore black. Can’t see the blood if there is any.”

  “I’m no amateur,” I said.

  Along the highway to the airport, he took an exit in a bad part of town. “What are you doing?” I asked. “This isn’t the way to the airport.”

  “Dropping off your bike. Someone here will steal it first light.”

  “You’re no amateur either,” I said with admiration.

  He parked on a street and took the bike from the trunk, standing it next to a hurricane fence by a desolate ballpark.

  When he neared the airport I said, “Mr. Brandywyne, I think you should park and let me out by myself. If you let me out in the unloading zone, someone might remember you or the car.”

  He glanced at me. “Maybe you’re right.”

  He drove into the parking garage and, as I’d hoped, chose a level with few cars. He opened his door to say goodbye or maybe shake my hand, the way I had hoped he would. That made it so much easier. I snagged the tire iron along with my backpack from the backseat, and then dropped the backpack on the passenger seat. When I got out, he was already around the back of the car to say something, but he never had time to speak. I brought the tire iron down on his bald head with a solid crack, and grinned as he went to his knees. His hands came up to his head; he lifted his face, blood streaming down his cheeks, his eyes wide and startled.

  “Gordon!”

  “Yes, Grasshopper, that’s my name and you’re the only one who knows it. Fuck you, okay?”

  I swung the tire iron from the side, catching him in the temple, and he keeled over like a bag of cement. I leaned over him and saw the open, dead eyes before cleaning the weapon of my fingerprints, taking up the backpack from the front seat, and closing the car door.

  I looked at my watch. I only had an hour to secure my boarding pass.

  Walking to the service elevator, I could see the pink-shell dawn threatening the horizon over the city. I felt overwhelmed with joy.

  Spain was going to be spectacular, I just knew it. I was so free. Finally, finally free.

  ALMOST EVERYBODY WINS

  BY LISA MANNETTI

  “Sally’s trance doings were always spoken of as her own, as if done by herself in a state of somnambulism. Sally’s letters she regarded as her own trance vagaries and Sally’s signature as a name used by herself.”

  —Morton Prince, The Disassociation of a Personality

  “A person—like Sally—with aboulia may find it impossible to pick up something from a table, or to rise from a chair, though strongly desiring to do so.”

  —Morton Prince, The Disassociation of a Personality

  “Chris was inclined to be boastful … ‘I made her do it. I make her do all sorts of things. She is a stupid chump.’”

&nb
sp; —Morton Prince, The Disassociation of a Personality

  Somebody or other, she thought, has said we often see life through a glass darkly—or maybe it was a veil. Shit, who knew? All that Christine knew was that this loser of a waiter was standing over them with a loaded gun and Sally Grimshaw sat frozen, slowly blinking, mouth hanging open like the dirty oven door she constantly thought about shoving her head inside, laying her flabby cheek against its cold blue enamel tongue, and then turning on the gas. As if death would transmogrify her into some modern-day version of fucking Sylvia Plath. Sainthood. Accolades. Yeah, right. Sally’s poetry earnings to date wouldn’t feed a goddamn goldfish, for chrissakes.

  Aboulia, or some crap-claptrap, Sally’s current shrink Cleckley called her inability to move. Like the name of a condition mattered. What mattered now was getting them the hell out of there—alive and in one piece. No time to get Sally to act—even if this depressed waiter was in the same suicidal boat along with Sally and had signed the same ridiculous illegal contract with Mr. Vinny of the Lifespan Treatment center. No, not enough time to push Sally from her own side of the veil. Not enough time—

  Christine bulled ahead—a dynamo, a NASA rocket with enough thrust, enough force to launch entire Himalayan mountains into outer space—at the same time she crammed Sally back down inside; now instead, thank God, she was the one who was out and in control.

  Using her slightly weaker right arm, she shoved the hesitant waiter’s gun hand aside—the .45 clattered to the floor, spinning. While the waiter’s eyes followed it with the concentration of a big bettor who had his life’s savings riding on 22 black on a Monte Carlo roulette wheel, Christine slammed Sally’s gun into her left palm, got her itching fingers into position, aimed at his forehead and pulled the trigger. He shoulda bet on red coming up, she smirked at her own pun. Smoke drifted from the barrel, and Christine inhaled its bitter odor gratefully. Sally might have hated the target practice at the shooting range Mr. Vinny insisted on, but Christine loved it. At the same time the waiter’s bleeding body fishtailed backward and slumped to the floor, Chris hightailed it, heading for the restaurant’s front door.